by Steve Ersinghaus

97: coma, canto 36

canto 36

we had conversation
where our boxes
gave us every other
word or several
other words redacted
so that what might
have been:
When the sun rises
when the sun rises
the night turns tail
and the bushes
and the corners
of the buildings
and the silver fenders
of the automobiles
emerge and the men
and women and children
appear to me as people
I once knew
but no longer knew
and the children
are men and women
and the children
I knew as children
have children
of their own.

became:
When the sun riseswhen the sun rises
the night turns tail and the bushes
and the corners
of the buildings and the silver fenders
of the automobiles emerge and the menand women and childrenappear to me as people I once knew but no longer knewand the childrenare men and womenand the children I knew as children
have childrenof their own.

and what might
have been:
I’m back home
now, as the border
was a mess
and the guards
turned suspicious
of me on both sides
and the Dominionist
lost his way
one day
and it is told
lost his ears
to gun fire
on his travels
for preachings.
And Lucy comes
and goes
and my mother is
as my mother is
and my father is
as my father is
but called
and asked that Lucy
return the things
she’d taken,
the very day I returned
I found her coming and going
and weeping
because he’d called
and not quite in an accusatory
rage but she claimed
as a tempest behind
his teeth, saw blades
grinding into his tongue,
accused her of absconding
with mere bibles
but that they were his
just the same
and that one day he woke
to a world full of thieves,
and he said it had all been
my fault bringing these thieves
into his home
and he suffering the indignity
of coma because of me,
Lucy telling me
my father telling her
my fault it was, all of it,
from the start,
and where were his things:
his books,
his tables,
his tools,
his pingpong table,
his oldfashioned lamps,
all gone, stolen,
and what will I read with
and what will I I read on
and whose fool idea was it
to give all his stuff away
for a legend, for a myth,
for the greatest quakery
of the ages

became to Imelda,
so far away, on these phone lines
not quite so trustable:
I’m back home now, as the borderwas a mess and the guards
turned suspicious
of me on both sides and the Dominionist
lost his way one day and it is told
lost his ears to gun fire on his travels
for preachings. And Lucy comes and goes
and my mother isas my mother is and my father is as my father is but called
and asked that Lucy
return the things
she’d taken,
the very day I returned I found her coming and going and weepingbecause he’d called and not quite in an accusatory
rage but she claimed
as a tempest behind his teeth, saw blades
grinding into his tongue,
accused her of absconding
with mere biblesbut that they were his just the same and that one day he woke to a world full of thieves,and he said it had all beenmy fault bringing these thieves
into his homeand he suffering the indignityof coma because of me,
Lucy telling me my father telling her
my fault it was, all of it,
from the start,and where were his things: his books,his tables, his tools, his pingpong table, his oldfashioned lamps, all gone, stolen,
and what will I read with
and what will I I read on
and whose fool idea was it
to give all his stuff away for a legend, for a myth, for the greatest quakery
of the ages

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100 Days :: Summer 2011

This will be my fourth year participating in the fun, exciting, and challenging 100 Days projects: year 1 I wrote one hundred poems; year two I wrote one hundred stories; year three I wrote 100 fictions. For 2011 I will round things out with another 100 poems.

But what's the intention. This summer my focus will be on hunting things down and tagging, hyperlinking, and using social media to identify those found items that inspire the poems. I will be watching for what the artists, musicians, and other creators do and will try to make poetry out of "found relationships." But also thinking hard about imagery, language, and orthographics. I've never been comfortable with punctuation in poetry but I am fascinated by putting heavy trucks on the edges of leaves or turning one celled creatures into things that point north, where yellow ducks live.